, 1887-10-20
A eREAr PRIMeVAL TEMPLE.



A Visit to tho Mighty Granite Blocks of
stonehenge-A Famous Ruin.
Coming over the crest of a hill just
above the village l see opening before me
a seemingly boundless expanse of undu-
lating gray moorland, scantily dotted
with a few stray clumps of trees. This
is Salisbury plain itself, and IN the brow
of one of its nearest swells stands a clus-
ter of dark objects, which h veriest
stranger would know at a glance to be
nothing else than the granite blocks of
Stonehenge.
Ones first impression on catching
sight of this wonderful relic is apt to be a
feeling of disappointment, such as one
experiences on seeing the Great Pyramid
rising above the date palms that line the
highway from Cairo to the Nile. The
peculiar effect of the Egyptian atmos-
phere actually diminishes the apparent
size of the pyramid in proportion as you
approach it, and not till you are close to
its foot do you at length begin to realize
the absolute n~othingness of the mightiest
structures of modern times when COM
pared with this giant of the past. So,
too, with the great primeval temple of
Salisbury plain. Standing alone amid
that vast expanse of bare upland, with
nothing near it by which its height can
be in any way measured-for the nearest
farmhouse is at least half a mile distant
it appears at the first glance absurdly
inferior to the imposing idea. of it con-
veyed by artists and travellers. But when
once you reach it and stand beneath the
mighty shadow of its outer powders, the
smallest of which towers several yards
above your head, you begin to look upon
the Druids and their architecture with
somewhat more reverence.
With all its grandeur, however, the
shape of this famous ruin ~undeniably
conveys at first sight the g~rotesque i'm
preston of a Child first essay in building
a toy house. The recurring feature of
two upright blocks with a third laid upon
them crosswise is just the style Of archi-
lecture which one may see growing up
under the hands Of some little Tommy or
Freddy in any nursery of London or New
York. Perrault or Hans Christian Ander-
sen might have made fine capital of the
idea of a baby giant who had begun to
build a toy house on this spot, and then,
having failed to complete it to his own
satisfaction, had partly Knocked it down
In a fit of rage, leaving the fragments to
be the wonder of all succeeding genera
lions.
In its original form Stonehenge ap-
pears to have pee a simple ring of enor-
nous granite blocks, set upright in the
turf a few feet apart, each pair of bowl
ders supporting a cross slab laid athwart
their tops. On the northern side this
formation is still tolerably preserved, al
though most of the cross pieces ave
fallen, and the powders themselves are
so thickly covered with moss and lichens
that the rugged granite is almost hidden.
The southern side of the circle, on the
other hand, is now well nigh destroyed,
and the few blocks which still remain
erect lean forward as if just about to fall
anon their PROSTATE comrades. Unmis-
taxable traces of an inner ring of smaller
stones are still visible within the larger
circle, and Just between the two stand
those two pairs of gigantic ''uprights'
~(surmounted by cross slabs of proper
Tomato size, which figure so prominently
in all pictures and photographs of Stone
henge. At a little distance to the north
of the circle, just at the edge of the high
way that runs westward to Warminster,
towers a vast solitary bowlder-the out
post sentinel of this army of giants
overlapping by two or three feet at least
the tallest of its colossal brethren.
By what agencies these mighty masses
of granite were transported and arranged
in the remote and barbarous age to which
they belong will probably be always as
great a mystery as it is now. Countless
a%ntiquaries nave expended upon the sub
ject the contents of what they are pleased
to call their brains, all fatty contradict
ing each other as n matter of course, and
each insisting upon his own theory as the
only one worthy of the slightest atten-
tion. But hitherto the results attained
ave been on a par with the discovery of
the learned critic in the old story, who
found out that the ''Iliad'' was not writ
ten by Homer, but by another person of
the same name.
But the occupants of the ancient tenn
pie, when l enter it, are of a widely diff
ferent sort from the ~antiquaries or men
of letters. ~Shockheaded boys are play
ing leapfrog over the fallen stones. Red
faced country pumpkins are drinking beer
in the shade of one of the hugest bowl
ders, empty bottles, egg shells, cigar ends
and scraps Of greasy paper lie strewn on
every side. The moment l appear a
photographers agent thrusts half q dozen
''views' into my face, while n fat mar
ket woman offers me a basket of cakes
indigestible enough to choke an ostrich.
Under such circumstances l naturally cut
short my tour of inspection and take my
departure as soon as possible. David
Ker in New York Times.
webster's Last Male Descendant.